Polymers for additive manufacturing

Nowadays, additive manufacturing (AM) represents a pillar of Industry 4.0 that specifically addresses deep smart technology automation. In this context, the skills of additive manufacturing can be successfully exploited for efficient information technology integration and for increasing industrial economic competitiveness. The significant progress achieved in the last 10 years was obtained also because of the possibility of designing new materials systems specifically devoted to each AM process; in particular, a significant contribution has come from the new polymer-based systems, implemented for such specific additive manufacturing technologies as fused deposition modeling, selective laser sintering, stereolithography, and 3D inkjet printing processes. This chapter aims to provide the reader with an overall view of the main recent outcomes concerning the use of polymer-based materials for AM technologies, discussing the current limitations, and highlighting some perspectives for the near future.